Just Another Day at the SGC
by Laitaine-Arnostale
Summary: When fruit starts flying and Hammond gets a job at a hot dog stand, you can't help but wonder when SG1 will crack. It may be sooner than we expected…like NOW! from Heliopolis Challenge 1,891. R&R please!


Title: Just Another Day at SGC

Summary: When fruit starts flying and Hammond gets a job at a hot dog stand, you can't help but wonder when SG1 will crack. It may be sooner than we expected…like NOW…

Written in response to Heliopolis Challenge #1,891:

1. Must include Daniel being hit by a piece of fruit. The more exotic the better.  
2. Someone has to say "Who let the green fuzzy thing in here", but it can't be in reference to someone's hair.  
3. Sam is working on something technical and she doesn't know the answer, but Jack does. When she asks him how he knows it he answers "The purple fish in the well told me."  
4. Teal'c has to try to get SG1 committed to a mental institution.  
5. Hammond decides to get an outside job, you pick why, but it has to be somewhere embarrassing, and SG1 sees him there, and they're embarrassed that they were caught there too.

I've seen so many of these challenge-based stories I thought I'd try one. Mwahaha…fun with computers over winter break. 

Disclaimer: I don't own/plan to sell this story or Stargate or anything. An original alien might show up, but I haven't decided yet  :-D

Just Another Day at SGC

            Daniel cursed his alarm clock in every language he could think of as it beeped relentlessly at him at 5:30 AM.  Slapping it off, he sat up and rubbed his eyes, wondering why the heck he still had to get up this bloody early in a military base.  Seriously, who in their right mind would send off half-asleep teams to potentially dangerous planets?  Oh yeah – Hammond would.  Why, oh why couldn't Daniel have gotten a nice ordinary job at a museum or university…he was going crazy out here…

            He stood up and dug out a standard-issue uniform, wondering if there was any chance of him getting to the surface today.  Just as he took off his t-shirt, something wet splattered against his back.

            "What the…" He whirled around just in time to see something green, fuzzy, and tentacled rolling past his doorway.  Craning his neck to see his back in the mirror, he carefully wiped the smooshed papaya off his back.  Who the heck was throwing fruit at him?  And why? 

            "Very funny, Jack," Daniel called, wiping the rest of the fruit off and pulling his uniform shirt on.  He leaned out of the doorway, glaring down the corridor in search of the most likely culprit.  Unfortunately, it was empty.  Sighing, he shut the door and locked it this time before finishing his morning routine and stepping cautiously out into the hallway for breakfast.  This time, however, he was not alone.  Something large, green, and fuzzy was rolling towards him.  As he fled for his life away from the thing, he distantly thought that it looked exactly like a huge moldy orange…except it had tentacles that were waving and grasping towards him.  

            Daniel stampeded up the stairs to the control room, earning stares from the rest of the workers present.  General Hammond was sitting at a computer, scrolling through a website.

            "General!  Who let the green fuzzy thing in here?!"

            "The green what?" Hammond responded, staring at Daniel like he had grown a third eye.

            "I don't know what it is, but it ambushed me this morning and it's – OUCH!"

            Daniel yelped and clutched the back of his head.  Hammond picked up the starfruit that rolled towards him.  "Did someone just throw that at you?" he demanded.

            "Yes, sir, it was the giant green…whatever!  Where did it come from?"

            "I have no idea, Doctor, but we'll get on it right away.  Keep a zat with you at all times, and if you see the thing, shoot it.  Deadly force is authorized."

            "Yes, sir." _You mean I was supposed to wait for authorization?  Screw that! _Daniel went back down the stairs, slipping on the thing's fuzzy mold residue as he went.

            Hammond threw the starfruit into the nearest trash can and rubbed his temples.  Why the hell did they all get up so early?  He needed another job.  After notifying the rest of SGC to the presence of a large green fruit-flinging…whatever, he returned to his job-search website and clicked on some interesting prospects.

******

Jack stared over Sam's shoulder at the computer – or, more accurately, Sam's reflection in the computer.  He was supposed to be helping her figure out what to do about the giant rampaging fuzzy green…whatever, but this was far more fun. God, he was tired.  The coffee was not kicking in this morning.  He enjoyed a brief mental image of the green furry thing drinking coffee, followed by several purple fish drinking coffee, followed by – 

"Sir, I can't find anything," Sam sighed, jolting Jack's attention back to the task at hand.  "None of the most recent gate missions could have brought back anything like this, and it doesn't look like there were any unauthorized trips.  And every one of the unidentified incoming wormholes was stopped by the iris.  Besides, how did it get all the exotic fruit?  I'm pretty sure papayas and starfruit don't grow on other planets."

"I thought we already knew this didn't come from off-world," Jack said, wondering where the hell he had just gotten that thought.  The image of purple fish and coffee was coming back…  

"We did?"

"Yeah.  Obviously one of the other teams brought back some sort of alien mold or bacteria that mutated one of the cafeteria oranges into a huge fuzzy green…whatever."

"That's logical, but…how did you know that?" 

Jack grinned in a less-than-sane manner.  "The purple fish in the well told me."

"Purple…fish?"  Sam asked hesitantly.

"Yup.  Fish are really smart.  It's pretty surprising."  Jack started to get to his feet, but Sam pushed him gently back down.

"Colonel, you just stay there while I call Doctor Frasier to see what she can do for you." Sam reached for the telephone, trying to calculate exactly how much tranquilizer Jack would need.

"Nah, I don't need a doctor.  I'm okay…we'll just need to figure out where that mold came from…before we get giant bananas rolling around…or hordes of huge grapes…haha…" He strolled towards the door and walked straight into the wall next to it, bouncing back a few feet before adjusting his course and drifting out the door.

Sam stared after him, wondering what exactly had just happened. Jack had been right about the off-world mutative agent, but purple fish?  She shook her head and shut down the computer, then stared in horror at the reflection of the monstrous moldy orange looming up behind her.  Sam reached frantically for the zat gun on the desk, but the thing wrapped a tentacle around her chair and sent it spinning.  It was like being back in a g-force simulator in Air Force training…except this time she was being pelted with fruit before she blacked out.

*******

            "Psst. Teal'c. Come here."

            Teal'c paused and looked for whoever had just called him.  Hammond was waving at him from a dark, unused office.  Curious, Teal'c went inside.

            "Teal'c, I need you to do something very important for me."  Hammond looked strangely anxious, and was wringing a piece of paper in his hands. 

            "I shall complete it to the best of my ability," Teal'c replied, wondering what this important task was.

            "You are aware of the giant moldy green…whatever that's running around base?"

            "I am.  Although from what I have heard, the large mutated ball was rolling, not running."

            Hammond flapped his hands, trying to get Teal'c to chut up and listen.  "Well, the only reports of it have come from your fellow SG-1 members.  No one else has seen it, and although Doctor Jackson did get hit by a starfruit in the control room, I believe it was just a prank.  So what I need you to do is…"

            Hammond handed him the paper.  On it was written information about a psychiatrist.  "Call this number and have them come pick up the rest of your team.  I can't have them stirring up trouble when we're running a very important operation here."

            "You wish for SG-1 to be imprisoned?"  Teal'c did not like what was going on here.

            "Only temporarily.  Just until whatever hallucinogen in their system has cleared out.  Can you do that for me? I have an…uh…important meeting this afternoon and I can't make this call.  It's up to you, Teal'c.  Can I count on you?"

            Teal'c reread the paper in his hands.  "You can."

            "Thank you, Teal'c."  Hammond clapped Teal'c's shoulder as he left the room.  Teal'c glanced down at the paper one more time before stuffing it in his pocket and jogging off to find the rest of SG-1.

******

"You're joking, right?  Hammond wants us locked in a rubber room?"  Jack scanned the paper, then balled it up and threw it across the room.

"No, he wishes to temporarily imprison you in a psychiatric ward."

"Same difference. Did he say why?" Sam asked anxiously.  She could think of a couple good reasons for locking up Jack, specifically purple fish, but the rest of the team?  She picked more dried tangerine out of her hair and tried in vain to brush crusted-on pineapple off her chair.

"He is under the impression that you are inventing the tale of the large green fruit as a result of a hallucinogen caught off-world."

"See? See? I was right about the off-world part!"  Jack said proudly.

"You mean the purple fish was right," Sam retorted.  Daniel and Teal'c both gave her strange looks.

Jack shook his head.  "It's so much fun to mess with you, Major.  Purple fish? Come on, Carter, did you actually believe me?"

"There's a huge moldy orange rolling around base!  Anything could go right now!"  She flung a glob of half-dried mango at Jack, who dodged it easily.

"We must stop bickering if we are to avoid being imprisoned.  Rescue of SGC is imperative, but at the time, our own freedom and well-being is at stake.  General Hammond is currently off base in a meeting.  Now is an opportune moment for escape."  

"Any good ideas?"  Jack asked.

"Somewhere we'd never go…somewhere juvenile…" Daniel stared at the ceiling, thinking about a good place in the town to hide.

"Tony's Hot Dog Stand!  It's perfect!  No one on base ever goes in there because it's such a joke!"  

"Brilliant, Carter.  Now let's get out apparently hallucinating asses up there," Jack ordered, and they all ran for the elevators.

******

            The group leaped out of Jack's car and made their way stealthily into the hot dog stand.  As they had predicted, only a few teenagers and some down-and-out truckers were inside.  Sighing with relief, they all slid into a booth far away from the window.  The booth was perfectly ordinary – bottles of ketchup and mustand, packets of sugar, and a little card advertising the newest deal in the, for lack of a better term, restaurant.

            "That almost went too well," Daniel observed. 

            "Hold still, Daniel, you have some of that mold in your hair."  Sam picked it out, making a face, and dropped it on the table.

            "Dammit, Carter, now the table's gonna be chasing us around town!" Jack yelped, pushing as far away from it as he could.  But nothing happened, and the patch of mold just sat.  Teal'c eyed it uncertainly.

            "Perhaps we should have gone through decontamination before we departed from SGC?"

            "Too late now."  Jack, having nothing else to do, reached for the sugar packets and accidentally knocked over the ketchup in the process.  It spilled over the table, hitting the mold in the process and incinerating it.

            "Did you see that?" Daniel gasped.

            "Indeed, the mold appears to be reactive to the red substance."

            "Ketchup, Teal'c, it's called ketchup," Jack snapped.  "Waiter, some napkins?"

            The bald waiter brought over a stack of napkins, and as soon as the five recognized each other, they all yelled in shock.

            "General!  What are you doing here?"  Sam gasped.

            "For you information, I work here now," General Hammond retorted.  "As for you, I don't think you have permission to be off base, never mind in public!  Teal'c, you were supposed to take care of a phone call for me!"

            "General, we have discovered a means of destroying the large creature that you believe to be a hallucination. I refuse to incarcerate my companions for being truthful."

            Hammond sputtered for a moment, then finally spat out his sentence.  "You get back to base, now.  If that thing is gone and I hear nothing more of it, I will tell no one of your little outing to this dump."

            "But, General, I thought you work here…" Jack grinned.

            "This was an unsuccessful attempt to regain my sanity after too much stress in SGC.  It's not working.  I'm quitting after today.  You don't tell anyone, I don't tell anyone."

            The four members of SG-1 exchanged amused glances. "Well, I guess so…" Jack sighed with theatrical reluctance before winking at Sam.

            "Good.  Now get back to base and get rid of that…whatever!"

******

            By 1800 hours SG-1 had hunted down the huge moldy orange and ketchuped it to death.  The haz-mat teams were cleaning up the remains, and SG-1 sat down at last to a relaxing dinner in the cafeteria.  

            "Well, that was a weird day," Daniel sighed, taking a sip of water.

            "Nah.  Just another day at SGC," Jack said lightly.  "I am definitely glad it's over."

            "Me too."

            "As am I."

            "Hey, Colonel! Catch!"

            Jack reflexively caught the object that one of the lieutenants had just thrown at him. He promptly screamed and dropped it.

            "Ack! An orange!"

            The team was promptly bombarded by dozens of oranges, coming from all directions, even the kitchen.  Jack returned fire with his cup of Jello, splatting one of the other soldiers.  The conflict soon escalated into a full-scale food fight that even Hammond eventually joined.

            Daniel dodged yet another orange, groaning, "Yep, another day at SGC." 

The End! Review please please please and the gods of feedback shall smile upon you!


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